


Smart Bomb

by galmaegi



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galmaegi/pseuds/galmaegi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year with two high school boys in Yongin, one who hates school and loves dance and one who doesn't know what he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hated It (March 2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](http://dl.dropbox.com/s/nq9thfznbfiq3h9/01%20Hated%20It.mp3)

There’s a new student in their class, but this isn’t like a drama where he enters late and is made to introduce himself loudly before everyone - he’s already sitting down and has his books out by the time Sungyeol finds his seat next to him. “New Kid,” says Sungyeol, before he can stop himself.

New Kid turns and raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s me,” he says. He’s from Busan, from the sounds of it.

“You’re already here in the middle, huh?” Even before the year has started, the desks have been organized by last year’s class rank, and Sungyeol’s is near the centre of the room - not too far back, not too far forward. “I hope you’re not expecting to move up, because that hasn’t happened for anyone since middle school.”

New Kid laughs once. “It’s all the same to me.”

“Tch,” says Sungyeol. “You’re never gonna succeed like that, you know.”

“Do you think school is the only way to succeed?”

Sungyeol opens his mouth, but can’t think of what to say, and then the teacher walks in and everyone’s attention is drawn to the front of the room.

New Kid’s real name is Lee Howon, and he sits next to Sungyeol at lunch without even being asked. Sungyeol thinks that’s rude, but he shifts over on the bench anyway to make room for him.

“So what do you do?” asks Sungyeol, blowing on his ramyeon.

Lee Howon talks with his mouth full, stashing the food in one cheek. “What do you mean?”

“You said you had another way to succeed. So what is it? I wanna know.”

Howon blinks at him, chewing. “Would you try it if I told you?” He grins. “I’d really like to see that.”

Sungyeol scoffs. “What, do you juggle swords or something? Do you rob banks? How hard can it—”

“Dance. Hip-hop dance,” says Howon, and Sungyeol stops mid-sentence. “It’s not for everybody,” he says, tilting his head.

“You haven’t seen me, how do you know?” Howon raises an eyebrow at him and he recants. “No, that isn’t my thing.” He watches Howon as he eats, eyes turned down at his lunchbox. “So what, you’re gonna become a dancer, then? I mean, there’s a couple of kids who have a dance club here, but they’re...” Sungyeol looks over and sees them across the cafeteria, a collection of boys who wear sweatpants with their uniform sweaters and throw around random English phrases when they greet each other. He wonders if he should be directing Howon to that corner instead. He’ll get there on his own eventually, he figures.

“So what is your thing?” asks Howon. “Do _you_ rob banks?”

Sungyeol’s so surprised that it takes a moment before he laughs. “No. I don’t do anything,” he says. “I just go to school.”

“And sit in the middle of the class,” says Howon.

“So what?” says Sungyeol. “It’s not the end of the world, you should know that. Aish.” But when they go back to class, he tries to pay a bit more attention, occasionally glancing over at Howon, who stares impassively at the blackboard the whole time, lips set in a straight line.

Before they part ways after school, Howon taps Sungyeol on the shoulder and Sungyeol turns. “Hey,” he says, “call me Hoya.”

“Ho-ya?” Sungyeol repeats.

He nods. “It’s what my friends call me,” he says before he walks away.

“But,” Sungyeol calls after him, but he’s already down the hall, adjusting his black earbuds.

He waits until the next morning to strike. “You’re a bad guy, aren’t you,” he says as he sits down next to Hoya, who’s once again early for class with his books spread out.

Hoya looks up. “What?”

“You did something really bad at your last school, and that’s why they shipped you all the way up here. Is that it? Did you do graffiti on the front of the school? Did you pull a knife on a teacher?”

Hoya snorts. “Are you going to be a detective?”

Sungyeol squints at him. “I just have very good instincts. And I know that there’s something you’re hiding.”

Hoya drums his fingers on the edges of his textbook. “There’s nothing to it,” he says. “My parents had to move to Yongin, so we did. I couldn’t keep going to school in Changwon on my own.”

“You know, if you were really serious, you wouldn’t be in school at all,” says Sungyeol. “There’s nothing that says you have to be here.”

Hoya’s quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on his desk. Sungyeol braces himself for the big confession. He pictures Hoya walking away from a burning high school with the same placid expression, his uniform jacket slung over one shoulder.

At last he says, “I’m only allowed to do what I like if I stay in school.”

“What? Seriously?”

Hoya nods stiffly. “That was the deal.”

Sungyeol’s mouth hangs open in disappointment. “And you didn’t fight back or anything?”

“Believe me,” says Hoya, and stops there.

Sungyeol twiddles his mechanical pencil, the metal bits on either end tapping against the desk. Then he says, “Acting.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve always wanted to try acting,” he says. “I have an aunt who’s been in some dramas.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? You could’ve told me you were in the school play, or something.”

Sungyeol purses his lips together. “I’ve never really been in the school play,” he says. “I audition every year and either I get a tiny role or... I don’t make it.” He slumps down in his seat. “And that’s why I just go to school. The end.”

He can feel Hoya looking at him, but he doesn’t turn his head, just continues tapping his pencil against the table, slower and more rhythmically. Then the teacher walks in and he pulls himself upright, and he keeps his stare fixed at the front of the class until he can see Hoya’s head turn away.

At lunch, Hoya sits down at his table again, across from him this time. “Yah,” says Sungyeol, “the classroom seating assignments don’t apply to our entire lives, you know.”

Hoya leans forward with both elbows resting on the table. “Let’s make a pact,” he says. “I’m gonna dance, and you’re gonna be an actor. Right?”

Sungyeol scoffs. “ _That’s_ our pact?”

“No, the pact is this.” Hoya raises one hand, elbow still on the table. “We’re gonna make it through this year together, you and me. We’re gonna pass our exams, and then we’ll get the hell out of this place. Okay?”

Sungyeol stares at his hand. It looks like he wants to arm wrestle. He looks back at Hoya’s face and despite everything he knows now, he still sees a kid who might have stabbed his last principal, who lights a cigarette and sets his school on fire with the match as he walks away; someone who belongs at the back of the classroom, or slouching at a lunch table with other delinquents, people he can relate to.

“Why me?” he asks.

“Because you talked to me.” He raises his eyebrows. “So?”

Sungyeol inhales, then puts his elbow on the table and clasps Hoya’s hand. “I don’t know what this means, but okay.”

Hoya squeezes his hand and shakes it a little, with a grin. His teeth are white and very straight. “It means,” he says, “that we’re gonna have a good year.”


	2. French Inhale (June 2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](http://dl.dropbox.com/s/xlqzogxa55y91fn/02%20French%20Inhale.mp3)

“Guess what I’ve got,” says Sungyeol.

He and Hoya are sitting on the wall by the bus stop. Three days a week, the end of Hoya’s dance club practice coincides with the end of Sungyeol’s after school English class. At first Sungyeol willed their meetings at the bus stop to be accidental, and if Hoya wasn’t there when he arrived he’d take the first bus that came by. After the first few weeks, though, Sungyeol sat and let the buses pass him until Hoya showed up, and whenever he got out half an hour late from class he would find Hoya sitting on the wall with his earbuds in, waiting.

When Hoya sits with Sungyeol, the earbuds are slung around his neck and over one shoulder. “A frog,” he says.

“Aish, don’t be stupid.” Sungyeol unzips a pocket on his backpack and pulls out his treasure: a slim turquoise and white carton of cigarettes. “Behold.”

Hoya raises his eyebrows. “Where’d you get that?”

“My aunt visited last weekend. I took it out of her purse.” Sungyeol grins and shakes the carton, which rattles a little as its contents roll around inside. “Only one left. She won’t miss it.”

Hoya’s eyes narrow in thought. “The last one, eh?”

Sungyeol nods. “Yup. Saving it for a special occasion.”

Hoya licks his lips, still thinking. “If you give it to me,” he says, “I’ll show you something great.”

“Show me first,” says Sungyeol. “This is precious, you know.”

Hoya smirks and pulls his phone out. “Fine.” He flicks through it intently.

Sungyeol watches his thumb pressing against the buttons. “If you’re talking about your dick, I’ll kill you.”

“It’s not like that,” says Hoya. Finally he stops and grins at his screen, then he holds it up to show Sungyeol. “There.”

Sungyeol squints at the screen. All he sees is some blue shapes and some shadows. “Huh? What is that?”

Hoya chuckles. “What does it look like?”

It doesn’t look like anything. Sungyeol frowns at him. “Don’t play games. Do you want this or not?”

“You know Jung Yoonhye, from the girls’ class?” Hoya grins. “It’s her.”

“What, really?” Sungyeol grabs the phone from Hoya and looks at the picture again. The previously indecipherable image takes shape: now he sees that the dark smudge near the bottom is a navel, and the blocks of blue near the top and bottom of the screen become a bikini. He thinks of Yoonhye as he’s seen her, the noona with big eyes and a body hidden by the bulky sweater of their school uniform. “She sent you this?”

“Yup.” Hoya takes his phone back, then holds out his hand. “Cigarette, please.”

Sungyeol wordlessly takes the cigarette out of the pack and passes it to Hoya, then the lighter. Hoya flicks the lighter a few times before it sparks, and then he holds it up to the cigarette between his lips. Sungyeol watches as it catches, and then from between his lips comes a big cloud, which dissipates into a grey haze around Sungyeol.

The dirty smell is noxious and enticing at the same time. Sungyeol tries to pull the collar of his vest over his nose and Hoya laughs. “Is it bothering you?”

“It’s gross,” says Sungyeol, muffled by his sweater. “At least when you smoke it you feel something. All I get is the nasty part.” He sighs, pulling his sweater down. “I really gave in too easily.”

Hoya laughs. “Come here,” he says, beckoning him closer. “I can’t stand to see you in so much pain.”

“What?” says Sungyeol. He shifts closer to Hoya until their hips bump and he scoots back to his side a bit.

Hoya takes a drag on the cigarette, then gestures to Sungyeol again. “Come here,” he says, in a strained voice from trying to hold his breath. “Lean in closer.”

Sungyeol hesitates, then leans toward Hoya. Hoya makes a circle with his hand against his mouth and leans in until the other side of his hand touches Sungyeol’s mouth, then he exhales.

Sungyeol coughs, pulling away. “What the fuck?”

“I was sharing,” says Hoya. He takes another drag. “Haven’t you ever done that before?”

Sungyeol coughs into his hand and glares at him. “No. What is that, some weird Busan thing?” Hoya doesn’t answer, just continues smoking in silence, watching the cars on the road.

When it’s almost down to the end, Sungyeol says, “Let’s try it again.”

“What?”

“You know, the thing. Come on.” He makes a circle with his own hand and holds it up to his mouth, waiting for Hoya to get the hint.

This time when Hoya leans in and exhales, Sungyeol opens his mouth, and the smoke he inhales is hot and tastes mostly like something burnt and a bit like something else. He’s going cross-eyed from Hoya’s face being so close, and when he looks up his eyes meet Hoya’s and there’s a moment when neither of them move.

Hoya leans back first, and this makes the thin smoke catch in Sungyeol’s throat. He coughs once, hard enough to make his eyes water. “Fuck.” But his next breath makes his lungs feel big and overinflated, and once he’s coughed the itch out, his chest and shoulders are light and airy. “Phew.”

Hoya takes one more drag, then throws the cigarette butt at the road as he exhales. “It worked, right?”

Sungyeol stares at the road, imagining the smoke moving around his body. “I think so.”

On the bus, they sit at the back and they don’t talk about it. Sungyeol just coughs into the back of his hand occasionally. When Hoya gets off at his stop, he waves at Sungyeol from the doors and Sungyeol waves back, but neither of them say anything.

When Sungyeol walks through the door he heads for the bathroom right away. “I’m going to take a shower,” he yells through the door. He can’t risk his parents smelling smoke on him. He strips off his uniform and jumps in the shower, pulling the curtain closed so fast that the metal rings screech against the rail.

He purposefully turns the water on as hot as he can stand it, until the yellow shower curtain billows in the steam. He puts the shampoo bottle directly under his nose and inhales deeply, letting the cloying grapefruit smell fill his lungs and chase out the smoke that still clings to the sides, to the insides of his cheeks. But his mind is still unsettled, or worse, too focused on one thing, as he rubs soapy hands over his neck, down his stomach and his thighs.

Without thinking too much about it, he takes his dick in both hands and starts jerking off as efficiently as he knows how, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. He thinks about the picture Jung Yoonhye sent Hoya, the pixelated expanse of her bare stomach bordered by her blue bikini. He imagines her taking more pictures, taking off her top, turning around so her bare shoulders and back are exposed. He wonders if Hoya jerks off to the picture too, maybe in his room with one hand in his sweatpants. He remembers Hoya’s pinky finger resting against his mouth, the smoke that was more like a breath with its damp heat, like shower steam. Then he opens his eyes and forces his mind drop to blank.

He comes without much difficulty or noise not long after that. The water running over his eyelids is getting weaker and cooler. He kicks at the mess to make sure it goes down the drain. He cleans his hands again and then rubs them over his face, gargles with the shower water and spits, and he feels better.


	3. All Dressed Up (August 2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](http://dl.dropbox.com/s/y12xb8ohwycvuw1/03%20All%20Dressed%20Up.mp3)

Hoya’s eyebrows furrow when he opens his door and sees Sungyeol there. “Aren’t you supposed to be in cram school right now?” he says.

“I’m skipping,” Sungyeol replies. “Come on, let’s go.”

He waits as Hoya shouts something to his parents inside and gets on his shoes, then the two of them walk out to the elevator. “You know, you promised you wouldn’t fail the entrance exams,” says Hoya.

“Pah.” Sungyeol lets out a puff of air that blows his bangs upward. “You really think I’m going to fail if I miss one day? Have a little faith in me. Besides, my friend just came back from two weeks on the other side of the country. I think that’s a bit more important.”

Hoya grins as they get into the elevator. “Well, I hope you’re not too sad when you can’t get into Seoul National University like you always dreamed.”

Sungyeol snorts. “I’ll be feeling sad for you, ‘cause you’re gonna fail so hard you can’t get into a 7-Eleven.” Hoya draws his fist back as if to punch him and Sungyeol flinches and leans away. They spend a moment posed like this, then they both relax at the same time, chuckling under their breath.

The elevator doors open and they step out. Sungyeol squints a little in the sunlight coming through the glass doors of the lobby. “So how was Busan, anyway?”

“Changwon,” says Hoya.

“Whatever. Did you have fun? You see your friends?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I did.” He punches the button to open the door, and it slides open with a beep.

When they step outside, the heat immediately presses over Sungyeol’s bare arms like a blanket, melting the goosebumps from the frosty air conditioning in Hoya’s building. He swings his arms as they walk. “Living by the ocean would be sweet,” he says. “I’d just go to the beach all day.”

Hoya chuckles. “Yeah, but you can’t do that forever.” They turn a corner to the street. “Unless you wanna be a bum.”

“Maybe I do,” says Sungyeol. He stretches his arms over his head. “What’s wrong with being a bum? You don’t have to get a good job or kiss ass. You just get drunk and sit in the sun all day. What’s so bad about that?”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean, nope?”

Hoya shakes his head. “I’m not gonna let you become the neighbourhood drunk. Even if you do fail the entrance exams.” Sungyeol pivots on his heel and starts heading in the opposite direction. “Hey,” Hoya calls after him, “where are you going?”

Sungyeol glances over his shoulder and Hoya has stopped in his tracks, watching him walk away. “Well,” he yells, “are you coming or not?”

He turns and keeps walking, but slower this time. He can hear Hoya’s sandals thwacking against the pavement, growing closer until he’s beside Sungyeol again. “The hell are you going?” he says again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. You would be _awesome_ as the neighbourhood drunken old man, fuck acting.”

Sungyeol rolls his eyes and Hoya grins at him. There’s a line of sweat rolling down Hoya’s temple from under the short hairs of his bangs. It’s hot out, Sungyeol thinks, swiping at his own forehead with the back of his hand. Hoya’s wearing a faded purple T-shirt and grey track pants rolled up to the knee, a mismatch for the stark white and dark blue of Sungyeol’s school uniform. He’d abandoned the jacket as soon as summer school started, and he keeps his short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to just below his collarbone, but his slacks are starting to cling to his thighs from the humidity.

“I bet you haven’t been to the water park before.” The suggestion rushes out of him, and he hesitates a moment, then nods, satisfied. “Eh? Have you?”

“I haven’t,” says Hoya.

“Then that’s where we’re going.” Sungyeol grins and picks up speed in his walk, leaning forward a little.

The water park is a section of a larger park, with a long, shallow wading pool for children and a larger pool for adults that’s fenced off. Sungyeol guides Hoya across the field, his strides long and determined across the grass. When they reach it, no one is there, and the children’s pool is dry. A sign on the gate to the bigger pool reads, _The water park is closed until September for maintenance._ Sungyeol stops and blinks at it.

“Seriously? I swear it was open yesterday.”

Hoya walks closer to the sign and leans toward it, squinting. “Maybe we just came at the wrong hour,” he says. He straightens. “Or month.” He pushes the sign and the gate rattles, but doesn’t budge.

Sungyeol leans his head back and groans at the sky. “Of course. The one day I decide to come here and it’s all closed.” He sighs and turns in a half-pirouette, his arms dangling limp at his sides. “Well, what are we supposed to do now?”

“We could just do this,” calls Hoya, and Sungyeol looks up. He’s standing against the pool fence, one foot hiked up and stuck into the chain links. His fingers are loosely gripping the fence at chest level, which isn’t high enough if he’s being serious.

Sungyeol strides over to Hoya and peers through the fence, above the sign. The pool is still full, and the greenish water is flat and very clear. The smell of chlorine is strong. He can see the markings for the lanes along the bottom, but all of the floating lane dividers except for one have been taken off the surface. The diving board at one end looks rusty. Sungyeol can’t remember if that’s new or if it’s always looked that way.

“All right, sure.” He wipes his hands on his pants, then reaches up and grabs the fence at the highest point he can. He pulls himself up, hooking his feet into the links, until he’s on the top of the gate, suspended. He looks down and Hoya’s still on the ground, staring up at him. “Well?” Sungyeol says. “Are we doing this or not?”

Hoya nods and adjusts his grip, then starts climbing up to join him. The fence rattles under their weight. Sungyeol hoists his legs up and over the top, one and then the other. A thread from his pants catches on the wire and he curses and unhooks it. Then he lets go and drops down to the concrete below, his knees absorbing the shock from his feet. Hoya joins him a few seconds later.

Sungyeol walks over to the deep end and leans over it, looking down at the white and black tile along the bottom. “Watch out,” says Hoya, and he yanks Sungyeol backwards by his shoulder, making him yelp a little.

“Son of a bitch,” he says with one hand on his chest. Hoya smirks at him. He squats at the edge of the pool and Sungyeol comes over and squats next to him.

“Feel like going swimming?” Hoya says. He leans forward until he’s on his hands and knees and peers into the water.

“What else are we gonna do?” Sungyeol tilts backward, and when his butt meets the concrete he stretches his legs out and begins taking off his shoes. “Do you think the water’s clean?”

Hoya gets to his feet. “Only one way to find out.” He grins. “You first.”

“Me first?” Sungyeol pulls off his socks and sticks them in his shoes, then takes his wallet out of his back pocket and sticks it in his left shoe. “It was your idea.”

“Well, if you disintegrate, then you have an excuse for not being at school. And besides, you brought us here.”

“You’re such a goddamn chicken.” Sungyeol scoots to the edge and rolls up the cuffs of his pants, then sticks his feet in the water. It’s weirdly warm, but his feet are still intact when he kicks them up a few seconds later. “There. You satisfied?”

Hoya nods. “Sure.” Then he shoves at Sungyeol’s back, and Sungyeol hits the water with a big splash.

The pool is warm but it still shocks him, hard against his face and then cold under his armpits. Right away he propels himself back up to the surface, and when he breaks through he sputters to get the wet tendrils of hair away from his mouth before he rakes them backwards. The back of his throat is acid and slimy and water runs out his nose.

“Yah,” he screams, “are you crazy?” Hoya is standing on the concrete with his shoes off, his mouth hanging open in a sustained silent laugh. “Fucking bastard, you’re really...” Sungyeol hacks out some water, then paddles sloppily back to the edge. He holds out his arm. “Come on, you psycho. Help me out of here.”

“All right, calm down. Shit.” Hoya squats down and holds his arm out. As soon as their hands are locked Sungyeol yanks backward, and Hoya’s knees collide into his shoulder as they both fall back into the pool.

They go under together, and Hoya’s body moves against Sungyeol’s for a few moments before he rotates and kicks out towards the surface. When Sungyeol bobs up again Hoya is treading a metre away from him, his hair pushed back from his forehead and water streaming down his chin. His eyebrows are pressed together, but he’s smiling.

“Well played,” he says. He spits out some water, swirls and floats on his back. “It’s not the ocean, but it’s nice.”

“It beats fuckin’ cram school,” replies Sungyeol. He swims closer to Hoya, then stops and treads by him.

Hoya’s looking up at the sky, his mouth straight like he’s thinking about something. Sungyeol’s about to squirt water in his eye when he says, “Have you ever been to Seoul?”

Sungyeol puts his clasped hands back beneath the water. “A couple of times, more when I was a kid. Why, you haven’t?”

“A long time ago.” Hoya keeps floating on his back, drifting a bit towards the wall. Sungyeol swims after him. Then Hoya says, “A couple of my friends in Busan are thinking of moving up there soon. To audition.”

A heavy feeling begins in Sungyeol’s chest. He tells himself it’s the water pressure and bobs up and down a few times to get his sternum in the air, but it persists. “For dance?”

“Yeah.”

Sungyeol dips his chin below the water. “Well, they’ll be closer to you now, right?”

Hoya is silent for a few moments. “They asked me to go with them.”

Sungyeol is silent too. Then he snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Hoya turns his head and looks at him, his face still blank. “What, you’re gonna drop out _now?_ After all that?”

Hoya’s mouth elongates into a smirk, and he turns back to squint up at the sky. “I was hoping you’d be more supportive.”

“I’m supporting you not making a really stupid decision. What about your parents? What about me?”

“What about you?” Hoya raises an eyebrow, rolling his head back to Sungyeol. Sungyeol’s cheeks burn beneath the cooling streams of water from his hair.

“You, you can’t just leave me here in this shithole,” he stammers. “Where’s your sense of loyalty? You promised...”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” Hoya rolls over onto his stomach and paddles toward Sungyeol a bit before he stops, looking him straight in the eye. “What if you come with me?”

For a second, Sungyeol can feel his heartbeat in his throat. He slaps the water in front of him, splashing Hoya in the face. “Aish. Crazy bastard.”

Hoya laughs, shielding his eyes with his forearm. “Think about it. We could live together, you and me. You can cook, right?”

“Yeah, and I look great in a little frilly apron,” says Sungyeol. Hoya snorts. “So you won’t let me be a bum, but you’ll let me be a housewife? What kind of friend are you?”

“I don’t get anything out of you being a bum.”

“Oh, so you’re that kind of friend.”

The novelty wears off after half an hour. They keep waiting for someone to kick them out, to impose a deadline on them, but it never happens. So Sungyeol hoists himself out along the side of the pool, and water streams off of his polyester pants, now even heavier. In one fluid movement, Hoya pulls his T-shirt off over his head and wrings it out. Sungyeol watches the muscles work in his back as he twists his shirt, until Hoya looks back at him and raises his eyebrow. “You’re gonna go out like that?” he says.

Sungyeol looks down. His shirt is see-through where it sticks to his torso, patches of skin visible among the puckered wrinkles. He smooths it down over his body, aware of how flat it is in the wrong places. “You got a problem with my portable aircon?” he says, and Hoya laughs, pulling his shirt back on.

They throw their shoes over the fence and climb up after them. The metal links are hot now, and Sungyeol has to keep wiping his fingers on his pants to keep them from burning. Hoya’s already on the ground with his sandals on by the time Sungyeol leaps down from the top, the grass stinging his heels. His feet are dry, so he quickly pulls on his socks and shoes and puts his wallet in his back pocket. Hoya starts walking away before he’s done and he hops after him, still pulling on his second shoe.

“Are you really gonna do it?” he asks.

Hoya stops and waits for Sungyeol to catch up before he continues walking. “Maybe,” he says. “Either way I’m going to end up doing it, so why delay?”

“But you could say that about your whole life,” says Sungyeol. “It just doesn’t feel like the right time to me.”

“I don’t think you get that much say in this.”

Sungyeol shoves his hands in his pockets. They’re still soggy. “I want ice cream. Let’s go.”

It’s a ten-minute walk to the nearest convenience store, and they don’t talk the whole time. Sungyeol listens to the squishing of Hoya’s feet in his sandals and feels his shirt getting stiffer as it dries in the heat.

When they’re inside, packages of ice cream in hand, Hoya says, “I left my wallet at home.”

“I know,” says Sungyeol, placing his packet on the counter. “Your pants don’t have pockets.” He gestures at the counter. “Well?”

As he’s counting out the bills, Hoya taps his arm. He shrugs him off. “Yah, I’m going as fast as I can.”

“No, look,” says Hoya. Sungyeol turns and looks through the door to see his mother coming out of the shop across the street and heading towards the convenience store.

“Shit!” He throws down a stack of bills and his legs jitter as the cashier counts out his change too slowly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What do we do?” says Hoya. “Are you going to be in deep shit?”

“What do you think?” Sungyeol takes his change and shoves it in his pocket. “Okay, quickly.”

He pulls Hoya back into a corner with the toilet paper and mops and squats down, motioning for him to do the same. Hoya freezes a moment, staring at the door.

“What are you doing? Get down!” hisses Sungyeol. Hoya drops down next to him. The door chimes as it swings open and Sungyeol swears he can hear the exact squeak of the sneakers his mother wears for shopping.

“What are you gonna do if she needs toilet paper?” Hoya murmurs. He leans in and his nose grazes Sungyeol’s cheek. Sungyeol listens to the squeaky footsteps as they make their way up and down the aisles. He can barely breathe. Hoya moves his head slightly and his hair tickles Sungyeol’s temple. The ice cream is a soft weight in his hands.

Finally, he hears her say goodbye to the cashier, and the door chimes and shuts. Sungyeol exhales heavily and stands, his shoulder clipping Hoya’s chin slightly as he rises. His legs are filled with pins and needles, and he shakes them out. His pants are cold.

“You’re right,” says Hoya, as they walk outside without offering an explanation to the cashier.

“Of course I’m right,” says Sungyeol as they settle into the plastic chairs outside the convenience store. The ice cream is a little melted, and a thin white foam clings to the plastic wrapper when he peels it away and sticks to his hand. “Wait, right about what?”

“I can’t leave,” says Hoya. “What would you do without me?”

“I’d have a better life,” Sungyeol replies, flapping his hand at the table until the wrapper falls away from his fingers. But for a moment, with his hair soft and heavy from the pool and Hoya’s feet up on the chair across from him and vanilla ice cream cold and tasteless on his tongue, he’s satisfied with what he has.


	4. Pink Is The Colour (October 2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](http://dl.dropbox.com/s/apkd0qh5n83pa2o/04%20Pink%20Is%20The%20Colour.mp3)

Yoonhye rings the doorbell 20 minutes after Sungyeol texts to say his mom has finally left the apartment. When Sungyeol opens the door, he sees Hoya standing slightly behind her, carrying a full backpack on one shoulder. He scowls.

“Hey, you’re not part of this,” he says. He pushes with one hand against Hoya’s shoulder as Hoya tries to come in the door behind Yoonhye, attempting to block him. “I forbid you. What are you doing here, anyway?”

Hoya easily shrugs off Sungyeol’s hand. “Yoonhye didn’t know where your place was, so I figured showing was better than telling.”

Sungyeol snorts and lets Hoya walk past him before he shuts the door. “Just admit it, you’re jealous.”

“You caught me,” says Hoya. “I’m done with being a man, I want to be a woman too.” Sungyeol throws a lazy, long punch at him that he sidesteps easily. Hoya sets the backpack down and slips off his shoes beside Yoonhye’s small black ones. Yoonhye’s standing nearby, looking around at the apartment. Sungyeol hands her a pair of purple slippers and she takes them with a smile and puts them on.

“Your apartment’s nice,” she says.

“Thanks,” says Sungyeol. “C’mon, this way.” He walks past them and goes to his bedroom. On his bed is a pile of fabric, all the clothes he’d managed to pull from his mom’s closet between the door closing behind her and opening for Yoonhye and Hoya. When Hoya walks in he stands in the corner and Yoonhye stands by him, her eyes darting around the room. Sungyeol had tried to tidy it up a bit. She was one of the only girls he knew; he didn’t want to scare her away.

Hoya had told him a month ago, like he was talking about what the cafeteria had for lunch that day, “I’m dating Jung Yoonhye now.” Still, Sungyeol had nearly fallen off his chair and pulled his textbook with him.

“Since when?”

“Since a week ago.”

Sungyeol balked, his head bobbing forward and back like a chicken’s. “But you’ve already seen everything.”

“So what? It’s not like a movie where it spoils it if you already know how it goes,” said Hoya with a grin.

“ _I’ve_ already seen everything.”

Hoya snorted. “Is that supposed to make me jealous?”

“Asshole,” grumbled Sungyeol, but more than irritation at Hoya he was irritated at himself for having said anything in the first place.

Yoonhye sits down on the edge Sungyeol’s bed, next to the pile of clothes. “Your parents aren’t home?” she asks, and it’s innocent but Sungyeol still feels his neck growing hot. His eyes dart to Hoya and Hoya’s already looking at him, his expression neutral but set.

He shrugs and makes a face, and taps his fist against the wall, trying to look somewhere else. “As far as my mom knows, we’re running a waffle cart at the school festival and that’s what we’re meeting about. Otherwise I’d be studying.”

“Why are you even doing it if you’re so scared your mom’s gonna find out?” asks Hoya.

“I’m not _scared,_ ” replies Sungyeol, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding? If she found out, she’d probably make me a costume herself.”

Hoya picks up the backpack he’d brought in and carries it to Yoonhye. “I still think it’s weird,” he says. “Dressing up as a girl so all the guys will vote for you?”

“Girls vote too, Howon-ah,” says Yoonhye as she sorts through the pile of clothes on the bed.

“Exactly,” says Sungyeol. He picks up a scarf from the bed and wraps it around his shoulders extravagantly. “Girls love that shit for some reason.”

“Because it means the guy has a sense of humour,” explains Yoonhye. She watches Sungyeol swaying his hips back and forth and her lips twitch up into a smile. “And because it’s pretty.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hoya gets up and Sungyeol stops mid-sway. “Let’s make you pretty.”

They start with the clothes. Sungyeol’s mother’s clothes are a bit small on him, “and a bit…” says Yoonhye, holding up a ruffled paisley-print shirt.

“A bit what?” says Sungyeol, his head half in a turtleneck that won’t go on the rest of the way. “A bit what?” Yoonhye glances sideways at Hoya.

“Here,” she says instead, and she pulls a black dress out of her backpack and holds it out. The fabric is soft and thick in Sungyeol’s hand, and a little slippery. “This should fit.”

Sungyeol abandons the turtleneck, his hair sticking up in all directions, and he pulls the dress on over his t-shirt and jeans. It’s a bit of a stretch around the chest, but the full skirt pours down the rest of his body and ends just above his knees. “How is it?” he asks, looking up.

“Well, it’s hard to tell with the rest of you,” says Yoonhye, “but it looks nice.” She turns to Hoya. “Howon-ah, what do you think?”

Hoya doesn’t reply. He’s staring as Sungyeol twists on the spot, watching the gentle swing of the skirt, and Sungyeol thinks he looks angry, almost. In response he shakes his hips and strikes a pose. “I’m gonna be like Marilyn Monroe up there.”

Hoya snorts at that and rolls his head away. “Don’t be weird.”

“This is yours?” Sungyeol asks Yoonhye. “It must be huge on you if it fits me.”

“It’s an old dress,” says Yoonhye, glancing down. She rifles through her bag and pulls out a wig. “Here, this is for you. I don’t know if it’s the one you were thinking of.”

“The BoA wig?” Sungyeol walks over and takes it, then tosses it around a few times in his hands. It’s light brown, long and wavy, and smoother than real hair. “Not exactly.”

“Try it,” says Yoonhye. “I think it’ll be nice.”

“Help me, then,” Sungyeol replies. Yoonhye glances at Hoya, then shuffles over on her knees to where Sungyeol has sat down on the floor and sits up behind him.

She smooths his hair back carefully with both hands. “Sorry, I don’t have a hairnet,” she says.

Sungyeol shrugs one shoulder - he doesn’t know what that means. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to see what it looks like.”

Yoonhye’s hands are firm and certain and Sungyeol wishes the back of his neck wouldn’t tingle in response when Hoya’s there looking right at him, his expression too blank for Sungyeol to read as anything but displeased. She pulls the wig on over Sungyeol’s head and comes around in front of him and fiddles with the cap, then she leans back. “Oh my God,” she says, and a smile spreads on her face. She glances over her shoulder at Hoya.

“I wanna see,” says Sungyeol, getting up. He picks up a hand mirror from his dresser and holds it up. In the mirror, he can recognize his face, but it’s also suddenly a girl’s face, with full lips and cute cheeks framed by her long, sleek hair. Sungyeol momentarily forgets to breathe.

“Do you like it?” asks Yoonhye.

Sungyeol pulls a section of the wig back from the girl’s face and pats down her bangs. “I like it,” he says, though he isn’t sure. It’s a bit too creepy. He stares at the mirror for another beat, then turns around suddenly. “But wait. Does Hoya like it? That’s the real question.”

“How--” Hoya starts, but he has to clear his throat before he can continue. “Why am I supposed to have an opinion on that?”

“It’s your vote, isn’t it?”

He stands and stares Hoya down, and Hoya stares somewhere below his gaze, and for a few seconds neither of them speaks. Then Hoya says, “I think,” and Sungyeol feels his blood rush around his head and torso nervously all of a sudden. “I think it’d be better with makeup on.”

The nervous feeling subsides a little but doesn’t go away entirely. “Full makeup? Now?” Sungyeol stutters. He looks over at where Yoonhye is leaning against Sungyeol’s bed, hoping she’ll save him.

But she only shrugs. “Makes sense,” she says. “Maybe not _full_ makeup, but this way we won’t waste time on the actual day deciding what to do.” She goes to her backpack and takes out a makeup bag, which rattles. “What kind of look, do you think?”

“Um.” Sungyeol fiddles with the dress, smoothing it down over his body. He’s sucking in his stomach a little; he hadn’t noticed. He adjusts. “Something that will make me look good, I guess.”

“Pretty?”

Sungyeol presses his lips together. The word sounds so loaded all of a sudden. “Yeah.”

“Good luck,” says Hoya, and Sungyeol reaches out to hit him, more of a symbolic gesture than a real attempt.

He kneels in front of Yoonhye again. “Have you ever put makeup on before?” she asks him. Sungyeol snorts in response.

“What do you think I am?” he replies. Hoya laughs at that. “Shut up.”

“Ignore him,” says Yoonhye. She uncaps a pencil and bends forward. “Try not to blink too much, okay? Look up.”

“Don’t hurt me,” says Sungyeol, but he rolls his eyes up and keeps them wide. The pencil touches the corner of his eye and he twitches, making her exclaim in dismay. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to being stabbed in the eyeball.”

“Well, just put up with it this once.”

Sungyeol has to chew the inside of his lip to keep from flinching away, and his eyes are starting to water, but her second attempt is successful. She draws under his eye, then makes him close his eyes and draws along his upper eyelashes, the pencil a blunt, soft pressure against his eyelid. Her hand lotion smells like white chocolate. When she pulls away, Sungyeol flutters his eyes open to see her looking at him intently, with Hoya just behind her. He half expects Hoya to be making faces, but he looks just as fascinated.

“That wasn’t so bad,” says Yoonhye.

“I want to try,” says Hoya, and both Yoonhye and Sungyeol snap their heads in his direction.

“No way,” says Sungyeol. “I want to keep both my eyeballs.”

“Tch. You should trust me. I got good marks in art.” Hoya takes the pencil from Yoonhye, who surrenders it without a word.

“Stop him.”

“Trust me,” Hoya repeats. He and Yoonhye switch places so he’s now in front of Sungyeol. “Close your eyes.”

Sungyeol only closes his left eye, keeping the right one wide and trained on Hoya as he adjusts his grip on the eye pencil. Then Hoya pushes the pencil against his eyelid, and Sungyeol’s head jerks. “Don’t fuck around,” says Hoya.

“You try it,” retorts Sungyeol, but then Hoya brings his other hand up under Sungyeol’s jaw to keep his head steady and the entire contents of Sungyeol’s stomach flip. He wants to say something, or slap Hoya’s hand away, but he’s paralyzed as Hoya carefully draws over Sungyeol’s eyelid. When Hoya’s done he keeps his hand under Sungyeol’s chin and examines his work. Sungyeol opens both eyes and stares back at him, but their eyes don’t meet. Hoya’s eyes dart lower, looking at Sungyeol’s body in Hoya’s girlfriend’s dress, his hands folded in his lap.

“Well?” says Sungyeol after a while. He’s too aware of his heartbeat, too aware of his eyelashes and the itch of the wig on his head. “Are you gonna vote for me or make out with me or what?”

His voice is loud, so loud, and Yoonhye is right there but he doesn’t know what she’s doing or thinking, and he swears Hoya’s eyes go wide for a second before they narrow down and Sungyeol can’t read them anymore.

Hoya squeezes Sungyeol’s jaw roughly and then lets go. “I’ve got a girlfriend, thanks.”

“It looks good, Sungyeol,” Yoonhye offers. Her voice sounds small and far away. “You hardly even need lipstick. I’m jealous.”

Sungyeol staggers to his feet. His body feels bad. He tells himself it’s because he got up so quickly. “Then I’m gonna take this off, if that’s everything.”

“That’s everything,” says Yoonhye.

Sungyeol glances out his bedroom door into his empty apartment. “Let’s get out of here before my mom gets home. I want ddeokbokki.”

“Don’t forget to change,” says Hoya, and something about that stings.

“I’m not gonna do it here, pervert,” Sungyeol snaps. He goes out into the hall and into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him. His head feels like it’s glowing, like an incandescent bulb.

He takes off the wig, scratches his head throughoughly with both hands, then looks at himself in the mirror. His hair is short and wild and the makeup on his face looks weird. He’s too broad to be a girl, really, even if Yoonhye’s spare clothes do fit him. His chest and his limbs feel emptied out, spent. He takes one more look at himself, then he grabs a towel and starts to scrub his face, until it’s bare.


	5. Cott (December 2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](http://dl.dropbox.com/s/nls66fege7ysu9a/05%20Cott.mp3)

It’s three minutes to 2009 and Sungyeol is drunk. The four of them - Sungyeol, Yoonhye, Hoya, and Yoonhye’s friend Noeul, visiting on her university break - had started drinking even before their order of chicken arrived, and it’s only progressed from there. Even so, Sungyeol thinks he’s the best off out of all of them right now. Noeul might be less drunk than he is, but it’s hard to tell; she’s remained just as chatty through three bottles of Hite beer and some soju. Sungyeol can’t tell if she likes him. He wants her to like him just on principle, but he doesn’t like the feeling that Yoonhye only invited her along to occupy him, too polite to outright block him from spending New Year’s Eve with her and Hoya - or the other way around.

At the very least, they’re all doing better than Hoya, who’s lapsed into silent staring at the pattern of the Jungs’ carpet rather than the end-of-year music show on TV. To be fair, there’s no music right now, just the announcers chattering amongst themselves to fill the time. Sungyeol reaches over and slaps Hoya’s knee and he only sways a little. “Yah. You gonna make it to the new year or will you pass out on us?”

“Not too much longer,” says Yoonhye, and she pats Hoya’s arm where they’ve linked elbows. “They’ll stop talking eventually.”

Noeul picks a scrap of meat off of one of the wing bones on the plate in front of her, all that remains of their dinner. “You have to stay awake to kiss your girlfriend, Lee Howon,” she says. “You can fall asleep when you’ve done your duty.”

“I’m not asleep,” mumbles Hoya. He rocks back and forth on his butt. “It’s still 2008.”

“You have to kiss her just before midnight,” Noeul repeats with a grin, “so she’ll have a good end to the year and a good start to the new year.”

“And what about him?” says Sungyeol. “Doesn’t he get a good start to the new year too?”

“Isn’t every day wonderful with his girlfriend?” replies Noeul, fluttering her eyelashes. Yoonhye rolls her eyes, but she giggles and bows her head.

“Eight, seven,” Hoya says suddenly with the TV audience, and the others shout in surprise and start counting too.

“That was too fast,” mutters Sungyeol. Noeul laughs, but her eyes are on the flashing numbers on the screen.

Two, one. The audience cheers, the bell rings, and as if his on switch has suddenly been flipped, Hoya turns and kisses Yoonhye, before Sungyeol can even wish him a happy new year.

Sungyeol hears his name being called but he doesn’t turn around. He’s trying not to watch Hoya and Yoonhye kiss, the way their noses rub together and Yoonhye’s hands dangle over Hoya’s shoulders, but he can’t look away.

“Yah, Lee Sungyeol.” This time his name is accompanied by a hand on his shoulder, and he exclaims and turns. Noeul’s there, smiling more with one side of her mouth than the other. She tilts her head and raises her eyebrows, and it’s like everything falls into place around them, and there’s only one thing for Sungyeol to do. He crawls to close the distance between them and presses his lips to hers. Her lips are a little dry, but they’re soft and thin and warm, and most of all they’re there against his.

She pulls away first, just far enough to open her eyes halfway. She’s smiling. Sungyeol’s heart is thudding a thousand beats per minute. “Happy new year,” she says softly.

“Noona,” he stammers back. He wants to kiss her again, but he also just wants to rest his head on her shoulder and put his face in her breasts. She giggles, and he wonders if she’s read his mind. If only the air between them wasn’t too heavy for him to move.

Someone’s giving a speech on TV. Noeul glances away, and Sungyeol follows the line of her eyes to the screen. “Let’s drink more,” she says, sitting back a bit, “to celebrate.”

“Sure,” says Sungyeol, not knowing what else to say. A drink sounds good right now. His face and neck still feel like they’re on fire.

He watches the show for a bit, and then Hoya taps him on his other shoulder. “Lee Sungyeol.” When Sungyeol doesn’t respond, he says it again, louder. “Lee Sungyeol.”

“What do you want?” Sungyeol turns and Hoya’s looking right at him, his stare too level to be sober. Behind him, Yoonhye is looking at Sungyeol too. She’s hugging a pillow against her chest, covering up the bottom half of her face, so that Sungyeol only sees her big eyes.

Hoya brings his hands up to either side of Sungyeol’s face. His grip is firm, not too hard, but Sungyeol still feels like he’s cemented in place. Hoya examines Sungyeol’s face, then his eyes drop lower, and he leans in and kisses him on the mouth. He’s trying to keep his chin and lips stiff, maybe, but the alcohol betrays him and makes him loosen a little, so that Sungyeol can feel the soft wetness of the inside of his bottom lip, the tremors of his cheek against Sungyeol’s.

Sungyeol brings his hands up to grip Hoya’s wrists, but it takes a few moments before he finds the strength to pull Hoya’s hands off of his face and turns his head out of the kiss. Hoya stays where he is, mostly leaning forward on his knees. Sungyeol stares at him. Even drunk, he knows what he should do now: he should swear, he should hit Hoya, he should call him crazy and a homo and make Yoonhye kick him out. But it doesn’t feel natural, the way his actions had felt natural before. His voice is caught in his throat, at the back of his dry tongue, so that it backs up into his lungs and makes it hard to breathe. All he can do is stare at Hoya, with the feeling of Hoya’s warm lips missing from his.

“For a good start to the new year,” says Hoya finally. He sits back on his heels. His voice is gravelly. Sungyeol can’t tell if he’s smiling when he pulls his mouth straight. He looks from Hoya to Yoonhye, who’s watching the TV now, still clutching the pillow.

Noeul sits down next to him and hands him a soju glass, and he turns his whole body away from Hoya towards her. “You okay?” she asks with a smile. Sungyeol looks down into the glass, and the rotten varnish smell of soju and the idea of it settling into his stomach suddenly makes him queasy.

“I need to go,” he mumbles, and he stands up, still carrying the soju glass, and stumbles to the hall. Noeul reaches out but he waves her away. “I’ll be okay.” Yoonhye’s parents are sleeping and his footfalls are loud, but he makes it into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.

He puts the soju glass down and kneels in front of the toilet, staring into the water. He’s dizzy suddenly, and his body doesn’t feel right, at once hot and cold, hungry and too full. There’s a faint reflection of his face in the water, his lips and teeth. He thinks about Noeul, the feeling of her lips against his, but then he feels Hoya’s grip on both sides of his face and sees the heaviness in his eyes.

Nothing’s coming out. He turns and sits, leaning his back against the toilet, and stares up at the ceiling. There’s something weird about Hoya, definitely, and Sungyeol’s known this from when they first met. But that means there’s something weird about Sungyeol, too. It’s not evil, but it’s strange, and it’s not something he wants to think about right now. Or ever.

Sungyeol comes out of the bathroom and Noeul is right there, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She reaches one hand out to him. “It’s time to go home,” she says.

Now that he’s standing up, Sungyeol’s whole body feels like it’s shimmering, like it’s fading away and his brain has direct access to the world now. “I told you, I’m fine,” he says, and he starts moving past her back to the living room, back to Hoya. He can still hear the TV playing, a girl group song he can’t distinguish at this distance and volume.

“Sungyeol.” Noeul grabs his sleeve, fingertips grazing his arm, and he stops. She tilts her head down to gaze up at him and her eyes are serious. “Trust me, it’s time for us to go.”

Sungyeol stares at her, dazed, before it clicks. “Are they having _sex_ in there?”

Noeul yanks on his sleeve and pulls him all the way to the front door. She doesn’t even let go as she finds his shoes on the floor and sets them in front of him. “Walk your noona home like a good kid.”

They don’t say goodbye. When Yoonhye’s door closes behind them the noise of the TV vanishes and everything is silent around them, muted under snow. The night air pushes at Sungyeol’s ears, but it’s not that cold. Noeul’s arm is linked through his and she pulls him down the street. Sungyeol hardly feels like he’s walking, more just rolling forward.

“You don’t even live here,” he says finally, when they’re safely far away from Yoonhye’s house. “You go to school in Seoul.”

“I’m staying at my aunt’s house,” Noeul replies. “Alone,” she adds, after a moment’s pause, and glances sideways at him. “The show’s not done yet. We could watch the end there if you want.”

“I don’t care about the show,” says Sungyeol. “I just…” He thinks about what he does want. There’s Noeul, standing beside him, with her easy laugh. There’s Hoya, back behind him, who kissed Sungyeol and is having sex with his girlfriend right now.

He’s stopped moving and Noeul stops too, a bit away from him, and turns around. “What’s the matter?” Sungyeol’s looking at her but he doesn’t see her. Then she chuckles softly and walks closer to him. Her hands are tucked into her jacket pockets. “Lee Sungyeol,” she says, and he lowers his eyelids and dips forward slightly, but she doesn’t kiss him, just smiles. “I can take it from here.”

“No,” says Sungyeol, and he moves forward but stumbles. “Noona, you shouldn’t walk by yourself.”

Noeul tosses her head back, flipping her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll be okay. I live in Seoul, remember? I’m tough.” She steps away from him. “You should go home,” she says, and her voice wavers a bit for the first time all night. “Get some sleep. Eat your mom’s soup in the morning.”

Sungyeol can’t think about soup right now. “But...”

Noeul is too far away from him now and he can’t move. “I go back next week, let’s hang out before then,” she calls. “Happy new year.”

Sungyeol watches her walk away, her hands in her pockets and her balance perfect. Then he starts walking, too, back towards his apartment. He doesn’t feel drunk anymore, just like he can only focus on one thing, and right now that’s not the lingering boner in his pants or anyone’s lips or what either one means about him. If he gets home, he can go to bed and bury himself in the covers and when he wakes up, he can pretend that the new year started there, with just him alone.


	6. You Got An Answer (January 2009)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the song here.](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/g7lsieqsoip8qp0/06%20You%20Got%20An%20Answer.mp3)

There’s one minute left in English class and six minutes until 4:35. Sungyeol’s left knee won’t stop bouncing as he looks back and forth between the clock above the blackboard and the scrap of notebook paper on his desk, creased neatly into sixteen sections across the scribbly handwriting: _4:35 south gym. Shall we meet?_ He had found it folded up inside his locker at lunch, and he’d been carrying it around the rest of the day, unable to resist peeking at it whenever he got the chance. It makes him feel somewhere between receiving a wrapped-up present and the time he failed a geometry test in middle school and threw up on the way home with it still in his hand.

Kim Jiwoong next to him elbows him pointedly in the ribs and Sungyeol starts and glares at him. Jiwoong points at the teacher, then at his own eyes, so Sungyeol resumes mouthing along with the rest of the class’s recitation, rubbing the soreness out of his side. If he knew Jiwoong better, he’d show him the note and say, _What do you think of this? Who do you think it is?_ and they’d talk about it: the girls they hoped it was, the girls they hoped it wasn’t. Sungyeol would bring up that time just after the school festival when three second-years brought him a carton of chocolate milk but didn’t give him their names before they ran away. That was easily the most popular period of his life, and he’d talked about the incident over and over until Hoya stuck a piece of kimbap in his mouth so he’d shut up. He and Hoya were still friends, then.

Sungyeol thinks for a second about showing the note to Jiwoong anyway - maybe that’s how they could become better friends - but then the bell goes and Jiwoong immediately turns away and packs up his bag. Sungyeol stays where he is for a moment. He could just ignore the note, he thinks. He could let the clock on the wall tick past 4:35, 4:36, and never get up.

He stretches out his anticipation as much as he can. He takes his time on the stairs down to the first floor and then in the hallway towards the gym. The folded-up piece of paper softens in his hand from the sweat. Outside the gym, he can hear music playing and the occasional squeak of sneakers on the waxed floor. The sound reminds him of something, but he forces the suspicion down.

He checks his watch: 4:35 and 12 seconds. He pushes open the door, and the moment he sees Hoya the bubble of suspicion in his chest rises and bursts, filling him with disappointment and nerves all at once. He shoves the door and it bangs against the wall, then slams behind him. Hoya doesn’t stop dancing, staring at the wall in front of him as he waves his arms and swings his feet to the beat, faster than Sungyeol can comprehend.

“Stop,” Sungyeol says. Hoya doesn’t look at him. “Stop,” he says, louder, and then he stomps over to the boom box by the wall and turns it all the way up at first, then off.

Hoya continues dancing anyway, finishing the sequence he’d started, and only then he straightens and turns to Sungyeol. The sleeves of his uniform shirt are rolled up and he’s wearing track pants instead of his uniform. “Welcome,” he says.

Sungyeol clenches his fist and the paper crumples. “You wrote this?” he says. “What is it, then?”

“What? You’re the one who walked in.” Hoya raises his eyebrows and rests his hands on his back. “You here to join the dance club, finally?”

Sungyeol shakes the paper in his fist at Hoya. “You wrote this,” he says again. Hoya doesn’t say anything, but Sungyeol can see the lines of his face stiffen, and it’s enough. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t just talk to me in class like a normal person? You have to slip me a note like some... some girl?”

“As if you’re a normal person,” Hoya says. He starts walking towards Sungyeol and Sungyeol jumps in his shoes, the back of his neck prickling, but Hoya only picks up his backpack from beside the boom box. “And I’m not a girl.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” says Sungyeol, and he regrets it even before Hoya whirls around on his feet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” His voice is dangerously level. Sungyeol’s head starts heating up, like it’s glowing red.

But he keeps talking. He can’t stop talking. “Isn’t that why you called me here?” he says. “You know, I only heard about your breakup from some stupid second-year. She came up to me and asked if _Howon oppa_ broke up with his girlfriend and I couldn’t even answer her.” Hoya stares at him. “Weren’t we supposed to be friends? Isn’t that what your weird little pact or whatever was about? Instead I haven’t seen you since... since...”

He trails off, but Hoya only continues staring at him, and stands straight, still carrying his backpack in front of him with one hand. Sungyeol groans. “Are you really going to make me say it? Since the _new year._ ”

Hoya shrugs one shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“You’re _sorry?_ ” Sungyeol repeats, voice cracking into a screech. “Sorry for what? For not talking to me? For ruining my year? You know I only applied to one university, because of you, and I hope to God I get in, or else my entire future is dogshit.”

Hoya scoffs, looking down at his shoes as he scuffs the toes along the floor. “You’re gonna blame me for your shitty grades? You wanted to be an actor. You chose this.”

“I said that so you’d stop bothering me. And look how well that turned out.”

There’s silence for a few moments, as Sungyeol’s last words reverberate off the high gym ceiling. The paper is still in his hand, dampening in his clenched fist.

“Hoya,” he says, and his voice echoes some more, “why did you break up with Yoonhye?”

Hoya drags his toe along the ground a few more times, and then stops. “How do you know I’m the one who broke up with her?”

“Hoya,” Sungyeol says again, breathing so heavily that he can feel his ribs opening and closing, “why did you break up with her? Huh? Tell me.” Hoya’s silent. “Tell me.” Sungyeol heaves once, twice. “Is it because you like men?”

His voice ricochets around the room, a thousand repeats of the accusation, each one making his stomach tighten more. He waits for Hoya to turn on him, to tear his throat out with his pointed teeth, but he only laughs. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you.”

“Then who are you going to have it with?” The words rush out of his mouth like water out of a broken pipe, too easy, too much. “Your parents? Your girlfriend? _Ex-_ girlfriend?”

“So what then, do you?” says Hoya. The gym is fully lit, but Sungyeol can’t see his eyes when he looks up.

He grips his fist, and he can feel the softening paper in his palm. The confession note. “I don’t know,” he says.

Hoya snorts and looks away. He stands straight as always, but there’s something unbalanced about his pose. “How do you not know? You either do or you don’t.”

Sungyeol doesn’t want to do this. He wants to receive a confession from a pretty girl with long hair and be her handsome sunbae boyfriend and visit her from Seoul every weekend when he goes to university. Somehow it feels too late for that. He had his 18, and now it’s gone, and he’s here with Hoya.

“Why do you... Stop doing this.” Hoya looks up at him, and his expression is flat and unreadable as usual. Sungyeol’s cheeks get hot anyways. He tenses his face so he won’t cry. “You always act like you know all the answers, but then it’s like you’re too good to share them with me or something. Like I’m not good enough for you. Why did you even talk to me?” Someone’s footsteps stop in the hallway and Hoya’s eyes dart sideways. Sungyeol doesn’t care. “That first week of school. Were you just scared because you’re new? God, if you wanted to be a bully, you could’ve just made me give you money or buy you bread or something normal. Not this weird shit where you make me promise you crap and you...”

“Kiss you?” says Hoya. His voice is so much quieter than Sungyeol’s and it punches into Sungyeol’s gut, slow and jagged. His gaze is level, but he’s shaking, too, his nostrils flaring. “Why don’t you tell me what the answer is, then?”

Sungyeol steps forward. He takes a good look at Hoya, for the first time in a while: his dark eyes, their strength flickering; the acne along his chin; the downward curve of his lips. _Fuck it,_ Sungyeol thinks, or says it out loud, and he bends forward and kisses Hoya, holding their mouths together for a count of ten. It doesn’t feel like anything, so he leans back, but as soon as he does and he sees Hoya’s face up close, eyes closed and lips slightly parted, his stomach drops and he falls forward again.

This time Hoya opens his mouth and pulls Sungyeol in by the collar of his uniform jacket, so hard they both stumble towards the wall until Hoya’s backpack crunches into it. Their teeth scrape and hit each other and Sungyeol’s heart feels like it’s going to eject out of his mouth at any moment. Hoya pulls him in so close he can feel his body heat, the sweat from dancing and from kissing. Their legs fold and weave together like they already know where to go, and when Sungyeol shifts and rubs against Hoya’s cock he can feel Hoya melt momentarily under him.

When Sungyeol finally surfaces for air, he feels raw and shivery, like he’d been in some protective case that’s gone now. “Fuck,” he gasps, just for something to say. Hoya’s panting too, looking back at Sungyeol from under heavy eyelids, and for the first time he looks uncertain, vulnerable. Sungyeol’s hands twitch from wrist to cuticle, flexed against the wall on either side of Hoya’s head. He wants this, he realizes, so much that he can’t think about anything else right now. Every time their knees touched under the table in class, that time they walked home from the pool together soaking wet, every time they waited for each other at the bus stop: it’s all been because of this, because they both wanted this. “But what is this?” he mumbles.

The gym door bangs open and they both jump. Sungyeol’s entire torso lights up, but whoever opens the door only looks in momentarily before letting it slam closed again. It’s enough for Sungyeol. He slides down the wall next to Hoya and presses his face against his knees. His head hurts again, but it’s a different kind of hurt from before, in a different place. He hears Hoya sit down next to him, and they sit in silence for a while.

“I’m going to Seoul,” Hoya says at last. Sungyeol doesn’t reply, listening to his own breaths slowly expanding to normal again. “After graduation. I’m joining my crew there.”

“You told me about them,” Sungyeol says.

“Yeah, so don’t tell me that I never tell you anything.” There’s no bitterness in Hoya’s voice, but he sounds hollow without it. “What about you?”

“Am I joining your crew?”

Hoya snorts. “You know what I mean.” Then, after a moment, he says, “You’re going to be there, right?”

“I’m trying.” Sungyeol turns his head, expecting to meet Hoya’s dead-on stare, but Hoya is staring somewhere just in front of him. He’s lost too. “Hoya, I can’t date you. Not right now.”

He can see Hoya’s spine relax, like he’d been waiting for the answer, even though he’d never asked the question. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, for once, I’m fucking sure.” Sungyeol stares across the gym. There’s windows higher up towards the ceiling, and he can see the apartment buildings by the school in the distance. One of them is his family’s. “You just broke up with a girl, and I...”

Hoya looks at him, finally. “You?”

Sungyeol thinks about kissing him again; he thinks about never seeing him for the rest of their lives. _I’m not gay; I’m too scared; I don’t know what I want._

“I need to figure it out,” is what he says. “So let me do that, for once. Give me time to catch up to you. Okay?”

Outside the windows, the sun is already going down. Hoya stares at him, and Sungyeol wonders, for the third time, if they’re going to kiss again. But Hoya stands up, and shrugs his backpack up over his shoulders.

“I’m tired of fighting for you,” he says. Then he walks away, stopping to give a half-hearted wave before he goes out through the door. Sungyeol watches him go, too full of emotions to get up or even feel what any of them are. It’s 5:05 and 24 seconds when he finally staggers to his feet.

All during the bus ride home he replays their conversation, but he can’t think of how it might have gone differently, except to end in even worse disaster. When it comes down to it, he thinks, looking at his reflection in the window, isn’t he the same as he was when he was 17? He could start over at 19, return to a normal life, and no one would ever ask him how he spent his third year of high school. Just the words are comforting: a normal life. But when he thinks about telling Hoya this, in the darkening gym or at the bus stop or in the cafeteria on the first day of school, it doesn’t feel like the right answer, either.


End file.
